In today's environment, a computing system often includes several components, such as servers, hard drives, and other peripheral devices. These components are generally stored in racks. For a large company, the storage racks can number in the hundreds and occupy huge amounts of floor space. Also, because the components are generally free standing components, i.e., they are not integrated, resources such as floppy drives, keyboards and monitors, can not be shared. A system has been developed by International Business Machines Corp. of Armonk, N.Y., that bundles the computing system described above into a compact operational unit. The system is known as an IBM eServer BladeCenter.™
FIG. 1 is a front, top and right side exploded perspective view of the IBM eServer BladeCenter. Referring to this figure, main chassis CH1 houses all the components of the server blade system. Up to 14 server blades PB1 through PB14 (or other blades, such as storage blades) are hot pluggable into the 14 slots in the front of chassis CH1. The term “server blade” or simply “blade” is used throughout the specification and claims, but it should be understood that these terms are not limited to blades that only perform “processor” or “server” functions, but also include blades that perform other functions, such as storage blades, which typically include hard disk drives and whose primary function is data storage.
Server blades provide the processor, memory, hard disk storage and firmware of an industry standard server. In addition, they include keyboard, video and mouse (“KVM”) selection via a control panel, an onboard service processor, and access to the floppy and CD-ROM drives in the media tray. A daughter card is connected via an onboard PCI-X interface and is used to provide additional high-speed links to switch modules SM3 and SM4 (described below). Each server blade also has a front panel with 5 LEDs to indicate current status, plus four push-button switches for power on/off, selection of server blade, reset, and NMI for core dumps for local control.
Blades may be “hot swapped” without affecting the operation of other blades in the system. A server blade is typically implemented as a single slot card (394.2 mm×226.99 mm); however, in some cases a single server blade may require two slots. A server blade can use any microprocessor technology as long as it compliant with the mechanical and electrical interfaces, and the power and cooling requirements of the server blade system. For redundancy, server blades have two signal and power connectors; one connected to the upper connector of the corresponding slot of midplane MP (described below), and the other connected to the corresponding lower connector of the midplane. Server blades interface with other components in the server blade system via the following midplane interfaces: 1) Gigabit Ethernet (2 per blade; required); 2) Fibre Channel (2 per blade; optional); 3) management module serial link; 4) VGA analog video link; 4) keyboard/mouse USB link; 5) CD-ROM and floppy disk drive (“FDD”) USB link; 6) 12 VDC power; and 7) miscellaneous control signals. These interfaces provide the ability to communicate to other components in the server blade system such as management modules, switch modules, the CD-ROM and the FDD. These interfaces are duplicated on the midplane to provide redundancy. A server blade typically supports booting from the media tray CDROM or FDD, the network (Fibre channel or Ethernet), or its local hard disk drive.
A media tray MT includes a floppy disk drive and a CD-ROM drive that can be coupled to any one of the 14 blades. The media tray also houses an interface board on which is mounted interface LEDs, a thermistor for measuring inlet air temperature, and a 4-port USB controller hub. System level interface controls consist of power, location, over temperature, information, and general fault LEDs and a USB port. Each of the blades includes a handling system HS1-HS14 to allow for removal of the blade from the blade server system. The handling systems HS1 and HS4 are there to allow for the blade to be serviced or replaced as needed.
FIGS. 2A-2C illustrate a handling system HS1 for a blade in the blade server system. The handling system HS1 includes two handles 10 and 12 which each independently engage its own holding portion 14 and 16. The two handles 10 and 12 and holding portions 14 and 16 are attached to a chassis 18 which is coupled to the server blade (not shown).
FIG. 2A illustrates the handling system HS1 when handles are held by holding portions 14 and 16. FIG. 2B illustrates the handling system when the handles 10 and 12 have just been disengaged from the respective holding portions 14 and 16. Finally FIG. 2C illustrates the handling system HS1 when the handles are fully extended to allow for removal of the blades from the blade server system.
The problem with the standard handling system HS1 is that the two handle members are too large for the standard depth footprint required for each blade, in some applications such as when the blade server system is utilized for telecommunications equipment. There is a standard for telecommunications equipment in which the footprint is between 508 mm and 600 mm in length.
Accordingly, the protrusion of the handling system can extend beyond that length and therefore is not appropriate. What is desired is a way to provide a handling system that allows for easy removal of the blade but at the same time requires less space and fits within the desired footprint for telecommunications equipment for telecommunications applications. It should be understood that there are other areas where the footprint must be shorter also. This problem is not limited to telecommunications equipment.
Accordingly, a system should be easy to implement, cost-effective, and easy to use for removal of the chassis associated with the blade environment. The present invention addresses such a need.